{"id":54041,"date":"2025-10-24T13:50:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T11:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/?p=54041"},"modified":"2025-10-25T09:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T07:04:13","slug":"pope-to-beatify-martyrs-of-nazism-and-communism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/actualidad\/el-papa-beatificara-a-martires-del-nazismo-y-comunismo\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope gives green light to beatification of 11 martyrs of Nazism and communism"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a solemn gesture of remembrance, Pope Leo XIV has approved the martyrdom - for hatred of the faith - of eleven Catholic priests who were victims of ideological persecution during the 1940s and 1950s. Among them are the Servants of God Jan \u015awierc and eight companions, professed religious of the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco who were murdered in the concentration camps of Auschwitz<\/a> (Poland) and Dachau (Germany) between 1941 and 1942, and diocesan priests Jan Bula and V\u00e1clav Drbola, who suffered martyrdom between 1951 and 1952 in Jihlava (then Czechoslovakia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salesian martyrs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The nine were arrested and murdered \u00abin odium fidei\u00bb because they were priests. On June 27, 1941, in the Auschwitz concentration camp, priests Jan \u015awierc, Ignacy Dobiasz, Franciszek Harazim and Kazimierz Wojciechowski were executed. Ignacy Antonowicz died on July 21, 1941 as a result of the ill-treatment he suffered that day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 5, 1942, priest Ludwik Mroczek died after torture and multiple surgeries. On May 14, 1942 Karol Golda was shot in Auschwitz, after accusations of administering the sacrament of confession to German soldiers. On September 7, 1942, W\u0142odzimierz Szembek died of ill-treatment in Auschwitz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, on May 30, 1942, the priest Franciszek Mi\u015bka was murdered in the Dachau concentration camp (Germany) after suffering torture and ill-treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The martyrs of communism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the pontiff gave the green light to the recognition of the martyrdom of Jan Bula and V\u00e1clav Drbola, diocesan priests who were victims of the Czechoslovak communist regime between 1951 and 1952.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

V\u00e1clav Drbola was executed on August 3, 1951 in Jihlava as a result of a political trial. Jan Bula was convicted and hanged on May 20, 1952, also in Jihlava. Both priests had been baselessly accused of conspiracy, linked to the so-called \u201cBabice trial\u201d, a state set-up to criminalize religious activity and Catholic fidelity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religiosity in the fields<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Auschwitz-Birkenau, symbol of the National Socialist genocide where 1.1 million people died (one million of them Jews), was also a place of confinement for thousands of Catholics, mainly Poles, Gypsies and homosexuals. Between 1940 and 1945, at least 464 clergy and 35 nuns were deported to the complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the SS - a particularly anti-Christian organization - had strictly forbidden all religious activity and the possession of objects of worship, the faith survived in hiding. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum documents numerous testimonies that reveal how the inmates, risking severe punishments (such as 25 lashes), managed to keep their sacramental life alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clandestine Masses were held (especially in Dachau, with secretly brought in hosts and wine). In Auschwitz, discreet confessions were held, often next to the walls of the blocks, providing \u00abprofound relief and consolation\u00bb to the inmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The midwives in the camp, with the mothers' permission, baptized newborns who had little chance of survival. A marriage was even celebrated with a prisoner priest blessing the couple through the barbed wire that separated the camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inmates also formed groups to pray the rosary in October or performed May devotions in praise of the Virgin Mary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This life of faith, driven by figures such as Father Maximilian Kolbe (who confessed W\u0142adys\u0142aw Lewkowicz) and midwife Stanis\u0142awa Leszczy\u0144ska (who baptized Adam and many other children), not only offered comfort to the dying, but demonstrated the strength of the human spirit in the face of barbarism. Faith, in the heart of the extermination camp, was a testimony to the inseparability of a person's spiritual life.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

En un gesto solemne de memoria, el Papa Le\u00f3n XIV ha aprobado el martirio \u2014por odio a la fe\u2014 de once sacerdotes cat\u00f3licos v\u00edctimas de la persecuci\u00f3n ideol\u00f3gica durante las d\u00e9cadas de 1940 y 1950. Entre ellos figuran los Siervos de Dios Jan \u015awierc y ocho compa\u00f1eros, religiosos profesos de la Sociedad Salesiana de San […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1166,"featured_media":54042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad","category-vaticano","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.omnesmag.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}